Morley wrote:Pahoran wrote:No, of course not.
There are scum people, I mean some people, who advocate that the "Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little" comment refers to Brigham himself taking vengeance upon the MMM victims. The reality is that he was commenting upon the inscription made on the orders of Major Carleton: "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord and I will repay." This was a thinly-veiled threat against all Mormons then living in Utah territory and elsewhere.
Furthermore, while Dudley Leavitt claimed that the cairn was dismantled because Brigham gave some kind of non-verbal order, the fact is that other witnesses present on the occasion did not report such a destruction and still others saw the cairn still standing later on. Note that Leavitt was a massacre participant and had a motive to claim that Brigham was unsympathetic to the victims.
Pahoran, apparently I'm kind of unschooled in this. As you understand it, what revenge did Brigham Young take, when he said, "Vengeance is mine and I have taken a little," if, indeed, he didn't have the cairn torn down?
That's the whole point. Brigham wasn't referring to himself as having taken revenge at all.
When Major Henry Carleton, an anti-Mormon as rabid as any here (and that is saying something) had the cairn constructed, he included an inscription that was a clear threat against the Latter-day Saints: "Vengeance is mine saith the Lord and I will repay." This is taken from Romans 12:19 and is a clear (though common) misapplication of that scripture. The real meaning is that vengeance belongs exclusively to the Lord, therefore we should
not be seeking it. Brigham, who understood the correct application of that verse, as well as clearly perceiving the hostile intent of the
inscription, chose to comment upon that.
Not the massacre; the inscription.
There is no evidence that Brigham objected in any way to the existence of the cairn or any other grave marker; but I doubt he liked the inscription.
I find it telling also that Leavitt, acting as an apologist for the perpetrators, could not claim that Brigham actually
ordered the cairn destroyed. Rather, he claimed that Brigham made some gesture which he and his fellow-culpables
chose to interpret as such.
Regards,
Pahoran